First responder marks rapid-moving events of Cosmopolitan fire

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L.E. Baskow

Matt Teasley was the first Clark County firefighter to spot and alert others, then arrive on the scene at Sunday’s Cosmopolitan fire.

Thu, Jul 30, 2015 (6:45 p.m.)

Cosmopolitan Fire

A fire broke out Saturday, July 25, 2015, at the Cosmopolitan. The blaze was at the Bamboo Pool on the casino's rooftop. Launch slideshow »

There’s an inside joke told at fire stations that ceases to be “inside” about right now: At some point, every firefighter tells a story that starts with, “So, there I was …”

Such is the starting point of an especially harrowing tale of battling a blaze, the type of story a firefighter might tell one night while actually sitting around a campfire.

Matt Teasley, 31 years old and in his third year as a Clark County Fire Department firefighter, now has that story. It happened Saturday at CCFD Station 32 as a fire raced across the deck at Bamboo Pool in the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

“So, there I was …” Teasley starts, sparking laughs from his fellow firefighters as they eat a lunch of fried chicken and coleslaw at the station that sits so close to the Cosmo that it is practically linked to the hotel. “… at the back of the station. It was just like any other Saturday, and I was working out, in the back of the barn (or firehouse), and the back doors were open. I was lifting weights and about to do some cardio on the stairs behind the station.”

Teasley never made it to those stairs.

“It got dark. I looked up, and the smoke ‘header’ (the fire’s black plume) was blocking the sun,” Teasley says, motioning with his hand toward the station’s front window in the direction of the smoke. “I came inside, and none of the tones (or bells) had gone off yet.”

The time was 12:16 p.m.

It’s rare that a first call for a fire at a fire station is made by a firefighter running into that station. The front door of Station 32 is a little less than 500 feet from the main valet entrance at the Cosmopolitan.

This blaze was very nearly the proverbial fire in a firehouse.

“I told Captain (Don) Price, and he called on the radio to dispatch, which sets everything in motion,” Teasley says. “He was (sounding) the second alarm right then.”

Along with Price, two members of the Station 32 crew — engineer Andrew Villgrana and firefighter Rob Marquis — loaded into Engine 11, made a quick left on Harmon Avenue and another left into the Cosmopolitan valet entrance. They ran from the engine to the valet elevators leading upstairs to the 14th floor, where the blaze was already devouring cabanas and fake palm trees at Bamboo Pool.

“It was about a minute, maybe a minute and a half, after I first saw the smoke to when we entered the hotel,” Teasley says, his own timeline matching the official CCFD version of the events of that day. “We got off the elevator, and we saw a whole lot of smoke and a whole lot of fire.”

It’s pretty obvious to note that fires are hot, but this one was extraordinarily so as it burned the artificial palm trees, which are petroleum based and went off, as one fire official noted that day, “like a rocket.”

“Usually, our turnout (flame-retardant uniforms) keep our body temperatures normal, but this was the hottest outside fire I’ve been in,” Teasley said. “We hooked to the Fire Department connections and advanced the hose to protect the structure first, to stop if from entering the hotel.”

If the blaze reached the main structure of the hotel’s West Tower “it would have been a different type of fire,” Teasley says.

“We put out what was nearest to us, then had a stream going toward the building and the line of trees closest to the buildings,” Teasley says. “I mean, every tree that we saw there was on fire. It was advancing very fast, through the cabanas. The lifeguard stands were on fire. The beach chairs were on fire.”

Those on the deck had already raced from the scene as the blaze took less than a minute to wipe out most of the trees, lifeguard stands, cabanas and chairs on the deck. Aside from two mild instances of smoke inhalation, there were no injuries reported.

“Once we got water on the fire, it went out pretty quickly,” Teasley says. “From the time we left the station, it was about a half-hour until every bit of the fire was out.” That official timestamp was 12:47 p.m., or 31 minutes after Teasley first saw the smoke.

In that time, the CCFD’s rapid response resulted in 35 units and 110 firefighters descending on the Cosmopolitan. But the work was not finished with the dousing of the blaze. Teasley’s unit spent 4 1/2 hours on the deck going through what is described as “overhaul,” slowly working through the charred material and making sure there are no smoldering embers that can reignite the blaze.

“Some of the guests said they lost stuff in the safes, and we recovered some of those items,” Teasley says. “We were the last crew to leave. We secured the scene so no one would tamper with it so the investigators could do their work.”

No official cause has yet been determined. Soon after the blaze was doused, the hotel’s 15th and 14th floors in the West Tower were closed, as was the Sahra Spa & Hammam and West End Fitness Center. By 10:40 a.m. Sunday, those areas were reopen, as was (remarkably) the pool deck itself.

Teasley, who worked as an EMT in Southern California before moving to Las Vegas to join CCFD, had not experienced anything like Saturday’s event.

“Mostly, it’s the tones, the bells going off, that alert us,” he says. “I’ve heard of times when an engine will be going down the street and see a header go up and call it in. But to see a big column of smoke right next to the station and react before there’s a call is really rare.”

So, there he was … in a coincidental position to become a key figure in Las Vegas lore. Asked if it was the biggest story of his career, Teasley chuckles and says, “Oh, yeah, by far. So far.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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